Archives

The Carolina Hurricanes made a big trade splash at the NHL draft with the Calgary Flames, and there appears to be more transactional action on the way with both Jeff Skinner and Justin Faulk seemingly likely to be moved this summer.

During the final 2017-18 episode of 31 Thoughts: The Podcast - recorded July 4 and released July 5 - Elliotte Friedman and Jeff Marek did a quick look around the entire league.

As the segment on the Hurricanes began, Marek projected the team’s Top 4 on defense looking like Jaccob Slavin, Calvin de Haan, Brett Pesce, and Dougie Hamilton.

“Trevor van Riemsdyk, I think they’re going to sign a deal. At the draft, I heard that Carolina and Trevor van Riemsdyk were potentially going to arbitration. I was like, ‘What? How can that happen.’

“The Lindholm negotiation at the end between the Hurricanes and his agent, it didn’t go well. That was one of the reasons he got traded. And I heard that there was a battle between them. And I asked someone, ‘Is this true?’ and they said, ‘If you heard the amount of money that they were apart on each other, you wouldn’t believe it.’

“So I’m glad that cooler heads prevailing I think in Carolina to get a deal done because Trevor van Riemsdyk is a good depth player.

“The one thing I really think - when I heard de Haan, I was like, ‘Why another shot that way?’ And one of the things I asked around I heard is it’s a smart move in the sense that now you can trade Faulk and you don’t need a D that shoots on the other side. Now you’re full and you can go anywhere you want. Do you want to go in goal, you can go in goal. Do you want to add somewhere up front, you can add somewhere up front.

“By adding de Haan, you can subtract Faulk and you can fill a different need that just replacing him. I understand it. I think that’s pretty smart. It’s insurance.

“I had heard that Detroit had been in on Faulk, and I don’t think that’s gone away. I’d heard Chicago had been in on Faulk, but I heard the hangup there was Brandon Saad - that Carolina wanted Saad and Chicago didn’t want to do that.

“So I think that’s kind of where we are. And Skinner, that’s still kind of hanging over everybody too.”